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If you take 52.5% of the protein content of FeedBee, you get 19.11 % protein.

Once any feed goes below 20% crude protein, it is questionable as bee feed based on the standard by De Groot(1953). Protein levels need to be above 20% while utilizing the bees ability to utilize 100% of the protein by having isoleucine levels above 4%.

I mention "If" in the opening statement. I say this because at this time I question all the published information and marketing data for feed substitutes. I wish the industry would pay to do independant testing of the different pollen substitutes being marketed.

Some have said that bees eat up the BeeFeed. And at over 51% carbs(sugars) I don't doubt that. But pollen subs should be about protein, not an expensive means to feed sugar.

Do you mean Feedbee? If you are referring to the stuff that Dadant recently started selling that the ABJ published the studies of - don't waste your money. I put it on 200 hives side by side with 400 other hives, 200 on brewers yeast and 200 on Beepro. The bees consumed the brewers and Beepro readily but would not touch the Feedbee.

I would sure like to know how their studies showed bees eating this stuff almost as well as pollen. What a joke! Feedbee smells good and even tastes good but I guess not to the bees.

"Could you offer more details on the conditions
under which you did this comparison?"

First, in the fall, I fed Feedbee to about 200 hives in patty form mixing it as intructed with HFCS. The bees hardly touched it so I tried another method, also recommended by the Feedbee folks, by mixing a 44lb bag with 55 gallons of HFCS and feeding it to them in their feeders. Still they wouldn't eat it. At this point I'm thinking there must just be a pretty good pollen flow on so the bees are going after it instead.

In December I moved my bees, about 600 in all, to a warmer environment to starting brooding up early in preparation for the almonds. This time I wanted to compare Feedbee with Beepro and with brewers yeast. My bees were all in the same holding yard right next to each other. I mixed the 3 different pollen substitutes the same (with HFCS and about 10% irradiated pollen) all patties were nice and doughy.

On about 200 hives I put a patty of Feedbee under the lid over the brood nest. On another 200 I put a patty of Beepro just under the lid over the broodnest and on another 200 brewers yeast just under the lid and over the broodnest. After 2 weeks the hives with the Beepro patties and brewers yeast patties had almost entirely consumed the patties. On the other hand, the Feedbee was almost totally still there.

By the way, my feeders that had the HFCS/Feedbee mixture from last fall are still full as the bees still have not touched it. Now I have a big mess to clean up in trying to dump this stuff out since most of these internal feeders have caps and ladders. It's a slow sticky process.

One curious thing is that all 600 hives seemed to brood up fairly consistently and last week when my bees were graded in the almonds they all graded about the same with a 13 frame average. So even though the bees wouldn't eat the Feedbee, they still brooded up well.

This would have been great information to have on Feb. 21 at 11:51 AM when I was standing at Dadant and decided to buy a 5 lb. box of Feedbee (not having feed any pollen substitute in the last 10 yrs) to try on a couple of our northern wintered hives! Thanks, Guys!

I could take it back but I want to see if my results are different than others. I'll post it.

The protein is digested for energy, and the total consumption increased if the AA balance is incorrect. For instance, if I require a ration containing 4 g of isoleucine a day, and 100 g of total protein and have a feed supplement containing 2% isoleucine, then I must eat 200 g of this supplement (twice my total protein req). The additional protein is burned for energy/nitrogen waste at about 4 kCal/g. This is why people spend $$$ to breed corn, soy etc that has altered AA composition. Most non-sugar carbs are not digestible by honeybees, which do not have amylases, cellulases etc in their GI tracts.

pahvantpiper sezs:
One curious thing is that all 600 hives seemed to brood up fairly consistently and last week when my bees were graded in the almonds they all graded about the same with a 13 frame average. So even though the bees wouldn't eat the Feedbee, they still brooded up well.

tecumseh replies:
this suggest quite simply that pollen (protein) was not the limiting factor in regards to this (your) population of 600 hives.... and perhaps this may explain why one group did not consume the patties offered.

did the patties that were consumed have a higher sugar content?

at a 13 frames average in february (???) I would suggest that neither protein nor energy was limiting their growth.